Call Her Cassana
by adadzio
Summary: Stannis Baratheon writes a letter. It falls into Targaryen hands. A study of Stannis and Melisandre's relationship, ACOK to post-ADWD. Inspired by Kathryn Howard's letter to Thomas Culpepper. [Stannis POV. Mildly dubious consent. Bittersweet angst.]


_Prologue_

* * *

There is a letter amidst the ruin. Somehow, it survives.

 _My lady, You may be hearing reports, or you will in future months, or mayhap Lord Snow withholds correspondence from you entirely. Certainly this is just as well, for you avoid the company of men, do you not?_

 _It is with a grim conscience that I confirm our dire situation. Hunger and cold ravage my men. The storms may entrap us here, though Winterfell is within reach._

 _Yet I write not to discuss battle—I know you grow weary of such details—but to finally confess my shame, in the full confidence that this letter shall be lost amongst the snows. Yes, my shame. My lady, I would you were with me now, to see what pain I take in writing to you. My mind is maddened by illicit thought. I have never longed for anything so much as to see you. Do you search the fire as I do? My men see how I grieve, and they know why, for my shadow is not red. At this dark hour I surrender myself unto you, praying you send me word how that you do._

 _Lord Snow wrote that you were ill, a thought which disturbs me, for you are so seldom affected by the elements—_

The second page of the letter is lost. Still, the pale queen tucks the ruined parchment away.

She must find this lady.

* * *

 _Melisandre sang in the tongue of Asshai, her voice rising and falling like the tides of the sea. Stannis untied his singed leather cape and listened in silence_

(Davos I, ACOK p. 114)

* * *

No doubt this Westerosi air feels harsh against her face. Yet she does not flinch. She never does.

"What do they call you?"

"Melisandre, my lord. Understand, if you please, I have searched for you throughout time." His wife titters at that, and she is not one to titter.

"I knew the Lord of Light was calling us," Selyse cries eagerly, clutching his arm in her sharp hands. His skin prickles, but he stands still.

"Lady Melisandre," he confirms stiffly. It sounds melodic and noble. He very much doubts it is her real name.

"My lord," she interrupts, the common language still clumsy on her tongue. _Charming._ "I am no lady."

No, she is nothing at all. Nothing but _red_.

"As you say," he frowns. "For what purpose have you come?"

Melisandre turns to his bannermen, extending her bloody sleeves in dramatic declaration. "The red comet will herald your lord as promised hero against the darkness." She turns back to him, and the silks dance about her slender body. "You are Azor Ahai reborn!"

Stannis Baratheon is not so enthusiastic. "What jest do you attempt? Get off my land." Her arms fall, but her face remains passive as a marble statue.

"No jest, my lord. I only deliver the truth, humbly asking to serve you."

There is an overwhelming urge to flee the crowd. He does not heed it; lords do not flee from battle. "I have no need of a foreign religion," he says coolly. The red woman pretends not to hear him. She smiles when Selyse permits her to bless the castle.

 _"There is a burning flame against the sky that soars freely with the atonement of my soul…"_

He freezes at the sound of her voice. Nothing in this grim and austere world has prepared him for such beauty. Even in that strange, lilting accent... _gods_. Its astonishing spell is quite undeniable.

 _"My soul has been cleansed out of darkness with the fire of truth!"_ She sprinkles the floor with ember and ash. He is too enthralled to grind his teeth.

Only those who hear her will ever know just what a voice can be, for it is necessary to _hear_ to truly understand the magnitude of her power. He never expected to encounter it outside his daughter's fables. To find it washed up here, in this damp, ill-lit island, holds its own kind of terror.

Who is she— _what is she_ —to be possessed of such divinity?

 _"I am the servant emerging from the offerings of the ashes,"_ she declares, and he almost believes her, in that moment—believes that this is a rebirth for her. _"Hunger for the light is never ending,"_ she sings directly to him. _"I have found you at last in the rebirth of time."_ Their eyes remain locked. At his side, Selyse finally shifts awkwardly.

He cannot move. That first time he hears her sing, he can only wonder whether he beholds an angel or a demon. Lord Stannis is not a man who leaves questions to stagnate, so it is the latter, he decides—she is a terrible, bloody succubus. Her melody is repeated in the tongue of Asshai, and again in melodic High Valyrian. Finally the last note rings into the stale air of Dragonstone.

"She may join our house?" his wife asks firmly.

Terrible red eyes find his again. He has no choice, it seems.

Somehow she becomes his priestess.

* * *

 _"Ser Guyard says a woman should not be my standard-bearer...that she has no place in my war councils, that I ought to send her back to Asshai."_

(Davos II, ACOK p. 464)

* * *

Soon enough, she slithers her way into the chamber of the painted table. She smiles when he claims his brother's crown.

Her presence divides Dragonstone into two equally miserable factions. _How absurd_ , he muses. Now his wife has her men in court; he, his. Maester Cressen chooses the king's side, and it kills him. Yes, the man was wrong to poison the priestess.

Stannis is still grieved.

The witch looks at him, and he cannot help but feel he is next to burn.

* * *

 _"Others whisper that it is sinful to keep her in my tent of a night. Aye, they whisper…while she serves. As needed."_

(Davos II, ACOK p. 464)

* * *

It is strange, how it all begins.

This particular night, she is considering the dwindling candles with distaste. "It is so dark," she sighs. He does not understand why she is still in his pavilion.

"No need to relight them," he says absent-mindedly, then jerks his hand in dismissal. "I will retire now."

"Of course, Sire." The red woman does not seem to grasp the hint, however; if anything, she focuses more on intently upon him. Her figure is blurry, but so very red. He wonders how a person can also be a flame. "Forgive me, but…" She tilts her head, as she is wont to do, and it leaves him light-headed. "Your Grace seems distracted. Are you quite well?"

He is not well. It is an unfortunate position he finds himself in. "The herbs, for sleeping— " A puzzled frown crosses his lips. "Surely you added too much into my water."

Melisandre sweeps deeper into his tent with an ill-concealed smile, dressed in bloody velvet from head to toe. "Fear not, my king. The effect will wear off with the dawn." The tent becomes more hazy, his vision clouded by candles and red, red, red...

"I should never have partaken...the body does not require such unnatural…"

"As you say," she appeases. "But…will you not allow me to care for you?" She eyes his ambling form, his increasingly lax posture. "Can I offer a song to soothe you?"

"No," he says firmly. _Gods, I need—_ He does not know how or why, but his knees give way before her.

She smiles and does not assist him up. "Prayer, your Grace?"

 _Prayer?_ He tries to stand, but illness leaves him weak. "Don't— " he manages, clawing at the hem of her gown for stability. She pulls the anchor from him, drawing the velvet languidly up her calves, even above her knees.

"No praying tonight," she agrees, divine voice lowered to a whisper. The skirts are eased above her white hips, and he is mortified. She seeks his lips and he is enraged.

Panicked.

 _No!_ It is a rush of blood. Nothing more. This is an animal instinct that he can contain and control, just as successfully as he controls his heart. Those are not really his hands skimming the fire of her thighs, but a delusion. It must be the illness—the herbs which corrupt his senses.

Still, there is an odd satisfaction in her scarlet gaze.

The pounding in his head only worsens the next morning, when pale sunlight leaks into his tent. _Bloody hells, the pounding!_ And gods, he is meeting his brother to negotiate today. Stannis makes to bolt out of bed, but it is impossible.

 _What…?_ His arm and chest are weighed down, splayed with copper, warm and metallic under the light of dawn.

He squints. It does not clarify why she is in his bed, nor why she hastily pulls a robe over the curve of her belly.

 _The herbs,_ he thinks, running a hand over his face.

 _It must be the herbs._

* * *

 _"It is time I tried another hawk, Davos. A red hawk."_

(Davos I, ACOK p. 124)

* * *

She is useful after all.

This is why he trusts her beyond the cliffs of Storm's End, when her body swells for the second time, when her knuckles turn white in apprehension of the pitch black sea. This is what he tells Davos, how he convinces him to smuggle her—his priestess wrapped in heavy robes from head to toe. It is the answer when his Onion Knight returns from the docks with terror upon his face.

His brother is dead, and the Stormlands are his. King's Landing is next. The woman whispers of his victory day and night, but his mind feels muddled. It is not where it should be.

 _The nightmares..._

He is too exhausted to order her from his tent.

* * *

 _The king had been on the point of refusing them until Lord Bryce Caron said, "Your Grace, if the sorceress is with us, afterward men will say it was her victory, not yours. They will say you owe your crown to her spells."_

(Davos III, ACOK p. 624)

* * *

One evening he stops moving, scowling at the headboard. He is doing something wrong. He is not stupid, after all.

"Oh, no," she assures him. "It is not sinful, my king."

His ears burn scarlet. "I do not mean that," he grits out.

"Ah." Melisandre pets his black hair. "Shall we try something else, then?"

She does not understand, so he grinds his teeth and resumes. Her face remains passive as ever. It is a pleasant, pale thing to look upon, and she is objectively beautiful. Yet it infuriates him.

Melisandre's unsettling eyes snap open as fingers slide roughly between them. "What are you doing?" She realizes her rudeness, but he only gives her an irritated look.

"Lie back."

"I do not need that," she rambles, and he is pleased when the mask is finally shattered. "Just—take me again."

"Quiet," he snaps, and he is determined to get this right, so he kisses her into silence.

Whatever he is doing is rising inside of her. Her face crinkles up, and when it happens—he feels it, he _feels_ her pleasure, and it is the strangest, most desperate satisfaction he has ever known. Her hands clutch at him only to bring him closer, to move without thought, to sustain this feeling of absolute euphoria that leaves her breathless and whimpering. He looks down, but for once, those red eyes are closed to him.

Yes, it is this imperfection he prefers, for only he can break her like this, make her this way—lips parted as she tries to catch her breath, cheeks flushed, brow furrowed. He does not prompt her to say anything, but she holds onto him, overwhelmed. He wonders if Robert, in all his years of depravity, ever held a woman so intimately.

"It is resolved," Stannis decides.

The words ring hollow when he ships her back to Dragonstone with the Stormland bastard. He tells her he must appease his bannermen.

"I must appease R'hllor, too," she declares, and then she sets his table on fire. A goblet of lemon water does little to douse the flames. She laughs, and his teeth nearly shatter from the force of his fury.

Still, when her red hips arch forward, he cannot breathe. Perhaps it is the smoke dancing around them; perhaps it does not matter. A simple song and a brush of searing skin is all it takes to yield to her.

It is madness, her dark power—that is what Davos calls it. Davos hates his priestess.

Stannis hates his priestess too, but his curses are lost between her thighs.

* * *

 _He does not love me, will never love me, but he will make use of me._

 _Well and good._

(Melisandre I, ADWD p. 458)

* * *

King's Landing did not burn, but the bay did, and so does she.

He greets her with a bruising grip and cruel names. She does not abuse him in return, though he can see the fury in her eyes. The witch stands very still as he rains accusations upon her.

Finally his anger runs dry. She steps forward, then, coaxing iron from his body until he is naked as the day he was born. The shame is paralyzing, such that she manages to mount him.

"You will enjoy this," she commands. He is too weary to fight anymore, weakened by battle and blood magic and burning skin. Now it is she who uses him as she wishes. Afterward she soothes his gaunt cheek with a kiss. "Oh, my king…this loss will pass."

She infuriates him with her faith. Her serenity. _How can she be so determined when his cause is lost to the sickly green flames of the Blackwater?_ He has no answer, but it is useless to dismiss her from his side now. She will only drift back.

Men begin to call her his red shadow.

* * *

 _Stannis laughed. "I told you, Melisandre, my Onion Knight tells me the truth. Davos, I have missed you sorely."_

(Davos II, ACOK p. 459)

* * *

He is cruel to her.

He saw the vision—he _saw_ it. Men in black with torches on a high hill. A battle in the forest, snows heavy and grey, while all around them shapes move. He sees it and he believes in her power.

All the same, he is cruel to her. Davos— _damn him_ —cannot see his efforts to cast her aside. He only hears his court whispering of her influence as they walk past, sees the red woman ghosting him wherever he goes. These miserable wretches gawk and look, but they do not _see_.

"The knight plots to kill me," Melisandre insists. The king hates her shrieking, the madness in her mind, the delirium which tells her to sacrifice the boy. He hates how she has divided his house and weakened him.

He hates her, because she is right.

 _I need them both. My Onion Knight, my Red Hawk._

And now Davos is freed. It is so ironic that he almost laughs: His priestess was the only to visit Davos, the only to offer kindness and condolence for the loss of his sons. His Onion Knight claims not to remember this, or perhaps he refuses to remember.

On and on it goes. The bitter feud cuts into the air like a blunt dagger, and Stannis can stomach it no longer.

One day he finally refuses her in public, rejects her pleas to sacrifice Edric. Davos seems relieved. But his priestess's face falls, and it stabs his heart.

 _Why?_

It is another question with no answer, though it becomes obvious soon enough. That evening he climbs to her chamber and soothes the furrow from her brow.

* * *

 _Melisandre had spent the night in her chair by the fire, as she often did._ _With Stannis gone, her bed saw little use._

(Melisandre I, ADWD p. 450)

* * *

She keeps to herself. Other men do not know this, but she is really very quiet without eyes upon her.

Tonight she is stitching hidden pockets within her sleeves. He gives her servants beyond necessity, even on this Northbound ship, but she refuses to burden them with such labor. Her own nimble fingers dance, and so do her lips.

 _"Temper my spirit, oh Lord, keep it long in the fire. Make it one with the flame._ _Let it share that up-reaching desire._ _Grasp it thyself, oh R'hllor; swing it straighter and higher..."_

It is not a song, he realizes, but a prayer. She prays, and he is left in the doorway.

Finally her startling gaze finds his. "My king," she says, red lips spilling greetings and praises and all manner of new dreams from the fire. She gestures for him to take a seat, the same, slow unfurling of her wrist which nightly draws him toward her. He cannot focus on her fanatic ramblings, not when her hands are moving. There is something infinitely irresistible in those fingers; something that makes him feel he would follow even if it led him over the edge of the world.

Tonight she leads nothing but thread through the eye of her needle. That is fine, he can watch her sew for hours. _Could._ If it were less frivolous.

She does not observe her own artistry, but the flames. Her lover's gaze is just as pointless as his. _Why does she show such steadfast devotion to her invisible god, when there is flesh and blood in her presence?_ It is a useless line of thought. His mind switches to more practical matters—they will reach Eastwatch-by-the-Sea in a matter of days...

Stannis stands again. He is too restless for everything, it seems; the dying embers burn too brightly tonight, and the heat mimics her warmth against his skin. He shudders at the thought, eyes falling upon the bed. Within those mocking sheets he can see his bottled sin. That does not stop him from making the shameful decision, right then and there.

 _She must stay in the King's Tower at Castle Black._

Tonight his legs carry him not to her bed, but to her chair. Somehow he is striding, seeking her glow, her approval of his attentions. She grants it, rising so calloused hands can encircle her slight waist.

Tonight his priestess has swept her hair up in a rare tangle of copper and coarse maroon ribbon. The fire is crackling, which is well, as it covers his sighs against her bare neck. Hands intertwine. _Her hands are pale and graceful and lovely._ They clench as she is seduced by the fire once more.

Tonight this infuriates him, though he cannot guess why.

* * *

 _Lady Melisandre rose from her place near the hearth. "With your leave, Sire, I will show Lord Snow back to his chambers."_

 _"_ _Why? He knows the way." Stannis waved them both away. "Do what you will."_

(Jon I, ADWD p. 64)

* * *

When she is gone with the boy, he barks for food. He is not hungry, but it does not matter. He surveys his other options. Scrolls, maps— _fine. Maps_. By the time her crimson skirts brush his doorframe again, the maps are wrinkled beyond repair in his tense grip.

"You took your time," he accuses.

Her hair is a halo of flame, swept wild by the wind. Melisandre pauses on her way to the hearth, though she holds her chin high and aloof. "We had much to speak of, my king." She stares at the fire. "I am better use to you out there than lounging in your rooms."

" _Use?"_ he snaps. "I do not care what _use_ it is." His priestess actually seems taken aback. For a moment she only blinks at him, the mask blank and pale.

"I do not understand."

He barely understands it himself, though the years have made it more obvious. "A priestess should not conduct herself as you do," he grits out.

She tilts her head in her vexing way. "As _I do,_ my king?"

The map is crushed in his fist.

Most men venture to world's end to claim that which will make them gods, for that prize above all others, that elusive jewel they can possess forever. _The one true champion will not be defeated,_ she says. At every chance she proclaims his invincibility.

How is it, then, he is undone when she walks arm in arm with the Bastard of Winterfell?

"You mean to prohibit my leisure," she ventures.

"With men, yes. You will not parade yourself with men."

Melisandre is incredulous. Burning with indignation. "Except you?" she retorts.

 _I will play none of these games._ "Except me," he agrees, voice dangerously low. The jump seems too great, but he takes it anyway. "Say it," he demands.

The amusement slips from her face. This is a dance she never learned, and she is fearful under it all. He is not, he tells himself, though his heart pounds within its brittle cage. "Only say you are faithful, and so too will I vow it." His words sound absurd, even to his ears.

No woman would want his devotion.

"I still do not understand, your Grace." Oh, she understands perfectly well, and at the same time, she understands absolutely nothing.

"You," he clears his throat. The tempo in his chest becomes more fervent. "You will be my lady, if you command it."

"I am in no position to command anything."

His voice is shamefully hoarse. "Damn you, your lies..."

She glides to him now, but her feet seem to stumble in the slightest way. It finally dawns upon him. _The leap is greater for her_. But before he can explain himself, ruby lips are burning his. "I have searched for you throughout time," she murmurs. "All my life, for you. Everything I do, my king...it is for _you_. Remember this, my champion, my warrior of light…" Her red gaze flickers with rare timidity. "My lord."

He sighs, and then he claims her, because she is his lady.

* * *

 _And she feared to dream. She would sooner sit bathed in the ruddy glow of her red lord's blessed flames, her cheeks flushed by the wash of heat as if by a lover's kisses. Some nights she drowsed, but never for more than an hour._

 _One day, Melisandre prayed, she would not sleep at all. One day she would be free of dreams._

(Melisandre I, ADWD p. 450)

* * *

She is wearing her pale shift, the only garment she owns which is not red.

"My lady," he calls. His hand thrusts out the wildflower of its own accord.

Her slender figure catches the weak light of the sun as she turns. _Gods, he cannot breathe._ The quiet winter dawn softens the curves of her body. In that brief, frozen moment he believes she is indeed an angel—and not the succubus type. Silence. Blessed stillness wraps around them. Her brow furrows in that amusing way of hers. He wish to point it out, to break her frown with a wry remark. Yet he cannot. It is not amusement he feels now, but a sharp pain in his chest. She is regarding the flower as if it is dangerous, a threat.

He knows why.

"I will soon depart," he says, retracting the gift dumbly. Her gaze is more scarlet than usual.

"Already I pray for your safe return, my king."

 _Why? Why does she pray, when she herself is a goddess?_

She leans back against him with the whisper of a sigh, and his mind ceases its agitation.

His heart settles, too. He entrusts it to the pale hands of his red goddess, perfectly aware that those hands are unstable.

"There is another reason I must stay," she says suddenly. There is an urgency in her voice.

 _Always, there is the obsession._ She means to lecture him about her power at the Wall. It is hopeless, and they both know it, yet he cannot save her from the prison of her own disturbed mind. Neither can he snatch the fantasy from her, not when it is the anchor she clings to so desperately, so sinfully, so madly.

"No more visions," he orders. "Come rest." Her forehead wrinkles again, and the sight is pleasing to him. Still, he promises to keep Lightbringer close at hand, in case he must battle off the terrors of the night. He brushes his lips over the scars that no other man has seen.

"Will you write me?" she asks.

 _Write her?_ He is not some lover in a storybook. _And she is not truly a goddess,_ he admits. _Not Maiden, Mother, or Crone._

For even when the nightmares draw dark blood down her thigh, she forces a smile and says _much and more._

No, his lady is not a goddess. She is a far more tragic character.

* * *

 _"Talking to the red god," some said. "Calling out for Lady Melisandre," insisted others._

 _Either way, it seemed to Asha Greyjoy, the king was lost and crying out for help._

(ADWD p. 893)

* * *

He searches for her. He stares at the fire, lost. Oh, the ironborn hostage is here, and she is a woman.

He had forgotten other women existed in the world.

A thousand scrolls lie unopened upon his desk; yes, the thought passes his absent mind, but it is folly. He knows the ravens will never survive this storm.

This is precisely why he must do it. He eventually picks up the quill and writes his lady a letter.

* * *

 _"Show me Stannis, Lord," she prayed. Yet now she could not even seem to find her king._

(Melisandre I, ADWD p. 449)

* * *

Lightbringer is stained with gore. He grimaces.

Did he learn nothing when Ned Stark spilt his blood before Baelor? Did he not declare honor dead, then and there? He should have known. Only her songs, her hellish visions live on. Only her voice haunts him.

 _The stormland stag_ _in pools of life decreased, succumbs to burden, longs to drown, and then it all comes burning down—_

Her nightmares come true. His victory at Winterfell, yes, the great battle in the snow. It is true, all of it.

And all for naught. For now he sees darkness and great wings in the sky.

 _How fitting, that my entire life is thankless duty. Cold suffering._ He laughs bitterly, while the black sky burns at the feet of the gods and above the realms of men.

 _Burning is not so terrible,_ he decides. _Not if she is waiting in the fire._

He throws his broken sword to the flames.

* * *

 _I can speak to kings long dead and children not yet born, and watch the years and seasons flicker past, until the end of days._

(Melisandre I, ADWD p. 64)

* * *

 _My lady, You may be hearing reports, or you will in future months, or mayhap Lord Snow withholds correspondence from you entirely. Certainly this is just as well, for you avoid the company of men, do you not?_

 _It is with a grim conscience that I confirm our dire situation. Hunger and cold ravage my men. The storms may entrap us here, though Winterfell is within reach._

 _Yet I write not to discuss battle—I know you grow weary of such details—but to finally confess my shame, in the full confidence that this letter shall be lost amongst the snows. Yes, my shame. My lady, I would you were with me now, to see what pain I take in writing to you. My mind is maddened by illicit thought. I have never longed for anything so much as to see you. Do you search the fire as I do? My men see how I grieve, and they know why, for my shadow is not red. At this dark hour I surrender myself unto you, praying you send me word how that you do._

 _Lord Snow wrote that you were ill, a thought which disturbs me, for you are so seldom affected by the elements—_

"That is the end," the Dragon Queen says. Melisandre tries to smooth the furrow in her brow, but it is not as easy as before. Daenerys sighs. "If this— " she brandishes the singed parchment— "is true, you will tell me now. I can show you no mercy if you are dishonest."

How can Melisandre know what is true, without her king by her side? All conviction is gone. His queen and princess did not survive either; the North is ravaged. Such is the price of defeating the Others.

 _Sacrifice_.

The Targaryen girl raises an eyebrow at her silence. "You are the red whore of the usurper, are you not?"

Melisandre walks slowly toward the queen, ignoring the guards who reach for their spears. "I belong only to the Lord," she says lowly.

 _And the one true king of Westeros._ This silver woman's words cannot cover his.

Melisandre stops and studies her all the same. "I see the red comet in your eyes. The flaming sword in your children, leading the world from darkness. Listen well, I could be of use to you." Melisandre waits, then sighs. "Yet you see me as a loose end."

The queen shifts in her seat. "Only if the letter is true," she says pointedly. "Are you ill, as he says?"

"No, I will not die on my own, girl."

Daenerys sits up higher, holding up a hand to stay her bristling advisors. "It is customary to address a queen as 'Your Grace,'" she says firmly.

The priestess tilts her head. "Yes."

Men lift their voices to berate her openly. Daenerys sighs at them. "Leave us, all of you."

When the room is silent, the silver queen insists that she sit. "You are grieving, priestess. I understand that. And I would be a poor ruler if I begrudged everyone their loyalties in this war. On the contrary, please have my sympathies. Once, I lost a husband, a man I loved." She smiles sadly, but it fades quickly. "Now, I require your honesty. Is this simply grief for your lover?"

The red woman sighs again. "Save your fine words. You are not blind."

Daenerys is wiser than she expected. "From one woman to another, let us speak plainly, then." She folds her hands—such pale hands, such pale eyes and hair, these Targaryens have. "Did he know? Or anyone?"

Melisandre's composure flickers for a moment. "No," she admits, willing her voice to remain melodic and calm. "And now I have answered you truthfully. Will you offer mercy?" The Dragon Queen avoids her eyes. "Ah, you have a condition," the priestess prompts, smiling dangerously. Suddenly Daenerys feels foolish to have sent the guards away. "Others would have attempted to kill me straight away," Melisandre continues. "But you know better. You are a clever girl, I will admit it."

"Heed your tone," Daenerys advises.

"I am not too proud to admit, as well, that the other priests were correct. With your dragons, you are Azor Ahai. The answer is yes. I will serve you." The red priestess stands calmly, towering over the queen. "But not if it means betraying my king."

The Targaryen girl lifts her eyebrows. "You cannot serve me and a dead man both."

"I thought we were speaking plainly. I do not care about politics."

Daenerys softens her gaze. "I see." She sighs after a moment. "You must understand the threat it poses. I cannot trust— "

"You are not listening. I do not care about your throne. I never have."

The Dragon Queen is torn. Her advisors suggest they burn the red woman for her misplaced loyalty alone. Yet Melisandre prays, and she comes to humble herself before this Azor Ahai. She must. "Please, your Grace. It is all I have of him." In the end, the queen believes the sincerity in Melisandre's red gaze. Daenerys remembers the pain of loss, after all. She decides the priestess can serve with fire and blood.

"We need the woman's power," she sighs to her councillors. "So let her keep it. It is a risk we must take."

Daenerys watches Melisandre closely, of course. But there is no plotting. She only sings in a strange tongue, sewing little garments by the fire. It is an odd domestic display. Sometimes the queen overhears things in High Valyrian.

"You will not fear the night," Melisandre murmurs. "Your papa fought the terrors away with Lightbringer."

Trust is gained slowly. One day, the rest of the letter is found, blown a day's ride from Winterfell. Someone leaves it as a kindness in the priestess's chamber.

There is not much more to it, for her king is no poet. Her pale hands tremble all the same. _Did he know, when he wrote it?_

 _My lady, you are wise not to write me of it. I commend your understanding the danger of such an action._ _Yet should ever this letter find you, it is because I am quite dead, and then it is all the more imperative you hear my command._

 _Sacrifice your pride and find your messiah, if you can. You have searched throughout time. You must continue, even from ashes._ _Keep yourself in comfort, not only to fulfill your duty, but for the sake of others._

 _Do you understand how I mean? I believe you do._

 _Alas, I retire my quill. The winds pick up again, and Ser Richard Horpe brings the death count._

 _Yours._

The final word is added in reckless resolve.

 _Eternally._

 _S_

* * *

 _Epilogue_

* * *

The treasured letter hangs by the hearth. By now the parchment is curled by the heat of the fire.

 _The red one keeps to herself,_ they report. She sings in the tongue of Asshai, her voice rising and falling like the tides of the sea, her hands resting upon the swell of her belly. She stares at the flames desperately, night after night, praying to find it before the pages crumble to ash.

They do not know what she searches for.

One evening, her breath catches, the melody hanging unfinished in the air. She says nothing of what she sees, of course. She is content to be the only one who knows.

Yet in the corner of the letter she has found it, the palest ink of the kingdoms.

 _If it is a girl, call her Cassana._

* * *

 _ **To find my other works, including all the explicit stuff I can't publish here — visit**_ archiveofourown(dot org)/users/Adadzio


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